nly talk of savage recklessness,
of running over people in the street with his horses, of brutal conduct
to a lady of good society with whom he had a liaison and whom he
afterwards publicly insulted. There was a callous nastiness about this
affair. It was added, too, that he had developed into a regular bully,
insulting people for the mere pleasure of insulting them. Varvara
Petrovna was greatly agitated and distressed. Stepan Trofimovitch
assured her that this was only the first riotous effervescence of a too
richly endowed nature, that the storm would subside and that this was
only like the youth of Prince Harry, who caroused with Falstaff, Poins,
and Mrs. Quickly, as described by Shakespeare.

This time Varvara Petrovna did not cry out, "Nonsense, nonsense!" as she
was very apt to do in later years in response to Stepan Trofimovitch. On
the contrary she listened very eagerly, asked him to explain this theory
more exactly, took up Shakespeare herself and with great attention read
the immortal chronicle. But it did not comfort her, and indeed she did
not find the resemblance very striking. With feverish impatience she
awaited answers to some of her letters. She had not long to wait for
them. The fatal news soon reached her that "Prince Harry" had been
involved in two duels almost at once, was entirely to blame for both of
them, had killed one of his adversaries on the spot and had maimed the
other and was awaiting his trial in consequence. The case ended in his
being degraded to the ranks, deprived of the rights of a nobleman, and
transferred to an infantry line regiment, and he only escaped worse
punishment by special favour.

In 1863 he somehow succeeded in distinguishing himself; he received a
cross, was promoted to be a non-commissioned officer, and rose
rapidly to the rank of an officer. During this period Varvara Petrovna
despatched perhaps hundreds of letters to the capital, full of prayers
and supplications. She even stooped to some humiliation in this
extremity. After his promotion the young man suddenly resigned his
commission, but he did not come back to Skvoreshniki again, and gave up
writing to his mother altogether. They learned by roundabout means that
he was back in Petersburg, but that he was not to be met in the same
society as before; he seemed to be in hiding. They found out that he was
living in strange company, associating with the dregs of the population
of Petersburg, with slip-shod government